Almost 5 years ago, Estelle & Magan met at a wedding — where M was the photographer and E was a bridesmaid for her best friend's big day. We talked about books for under five minutes, and a friendship was born.

Since then, we’ve shared our love of books, Zac Efron, and shopping on this blog, changed jobs, had babies, moved, visited DC and Disney World together, and constantly stayed connected -- despite the miles between us. RBR has been the our own version of a coffee date, our way to mark the time before we can hang out and gab in person again. Thanks for spending time with us. xoxo

Summary: With hopes of leading an interesting life, Sunday never would have known that befriending a frog in the forest would give her just that. Distraught when her frog disappears, Sunday has no way of knowing that he has transformed back into Prince Rumbold, someone her family is not too fond of. Nor does she know that the announcement of three balls could mean the prince is on the search for her, his one true love.

Even though I mostly read contemporary fiction, I like to think of myself as an open-minded reader. (Hey, I’m finally reading Divergent!) As a huge fan of fairy tales, I thought picking up Enchanted would be a nice way to transition into reading more of the fantasy genre. Based on The Princess and the Frog, one of my favorite stories (I used to love Faerie Tale Theatre’s The Frog Prince too), I couldn’t wait to see how this retelling translated on the page.

Main character Sunday is a writer and a dreamer who meets a frog named Grumble one day in the forest. As they spend more time together (him eager to hear stories of her family), feelings develop, she kisses him and soon he disappears. And here is where the conflict arises. Sunday is heartbroken over her missing frog friend and Grumble is actually Prince Rumbold, an enemy of Sunday’s family. Even though he is aware of this “minor” detail, Rumbold is set on finding Sunday and spending the rest of his life with her.

Love story? Semi, instant love but check! Family drama? Double check!

So here we have a sort of Cinderella story with other well-known tales woven through like Sleeping Beauty, Rumpelstiltskin, Jack and the Beanstalk, and many others. While it was nice to encounter familiar tales, I’m not sure including all of them was the best choice in a book that already contained a lot of story. The history/secrets of Sunday’s family were one plotline, as well as Rumbold’s own back story which included much drama (and horror) regarding his father, the King. Plus, there were many supporting characters, which at times caused me to flip back through the pages so I could be reminded of who they were and how they connected to the story.

Kontis is a beautiful writer. She has created a majestic world with gorgeous imagery but too much time was spent on developing that background and not enough on the characters. (This also slowed down the pacing of the book and made me feel frustrated as a reader. I wanted to get to the meat of the story.) While I liked Sunday, she wasn’t multi-dimensional. There were only a few times when I felt what she was feeling. (Surprisingly, her affections for Grumble when he was a frog, this unattainable thing, felt very realistic.) Mostly, I would have loved to read more dialogue. When there was dialogue, it was delightful, funny, and quirky, and gave me true insight into these characters. The scenes I truly enjoyed were between Rumbold and his men (the banter was great) and also Sunday and her “brother” Trix. In addition, not enough attention was paid to key moments in the story and the impact was lost, like when Sunday’s aunt rolls into town with revelations about their family and we are told about it in passing afterwards. I wanted to be IN that moment and maybe then I would have felt more linked to these characters and their stories.

I wonder if Enchanted would have worked better as a multi-book series so more time could have been focused on each of Sunday’s siblings (such fascinating stories!) and this later storyline that pops up with Rumbold’s father. Again, I don’t want to reveal too much but I felt this storyline could have been planted from the beginning instead of just appearing toward the end. I feared, even after the book started at a turtle’s pace and maintained it pretty much throughout, that the ending would come too quickly. And it did.

Mostly I feel Kontis’ strengths as a writer were not utilized in the right way and if they had been, I might be writing an entirely different review.

Despite this, Enchanted did a number of things that I liked. In ways it felt like an organic fairy tale – comparable to Ever After where most characters get to really be themselves instead of a figment of what royalty or a princess-to-be should be. Instead of Grumble morphing right back into a strapping young prince, he is weak once he transforms and struggles to get back to where he used to be (although with a nicer heart). Even though it is based on a story (or stories) that most people know, these were details that made Enchanted unique.

Have you read Enchanted? I would love to hear your thoughts and also any other reading suggestions in the fantasy arena.

Alexa @ Alexa Loves Books-I’m a fan of fairy tales so it does seem like I’d like this novel, should I get the chance to read it. HOWEVER, I do have issues with slow pacing sometimes, unless it’s well done, so we’ll see how that works out!

Estelle-Mands, definitely worth reading a retelling. The writing is the best feature and there are some funny moments. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts if you get your hands on it!

May 13, 2012 - 9:04 pm

Shelve It Meme: 5/13/2012-[…] I enchanted by Enchanted by Alethea Kontis? Some adult fiction books that caught my eye! I don’t think you can tell just how much Magan […]

May 13, 2012 - 8:43 pm

VeganYANerds-I’m glad you ended up enjoying this, Estelle, I know it dragged a bit but it does sound like a very sweet story and I don’t read many fairy tale re-tellings, but this appeals to me!

May 12, 2012 - 12:33 pm

margie c {the bumble girl}-Isn’t it amazing how differently others can perceive a book!? I absolutely adored this book, it’s everything that I thought it would be, for me it flowed beautifully and was magical 🙂 I couldn’t put it down and read it all in one night!
I don’t read enough contemp, I am going to have to take a look at your recs and add a few more to my list, thanks!

May 12, 2012 - 12:39 am

elena-I realllly want to read this book so I got excited when you started it read it! Even though this book wasn’t exactly your cup of tea and had uneven pacing, I loved reading this review! I still want to read this book and see how I feel about it. I’m glad Kontis is a beautiful writer. 🙂

May 11, 2012 - 7:49 pm

Aneeqah-I’ve seen this book a few times before, but I don’t think I’ve read a really in-depth review about it before. The synopsis of the book sounds really interesting, but I’m sad that it wasn’t as amazing as it sounds. I’m not a fan of slower type books, I like lots of action and dialogue and stuff like that in my books [I’m more of a fantasy fan, unlike you. =)]. This book also seems like it’s super confusing, with all those plot lines and other fairy tales mixed in. I still may give this book a shot, but like you suggested, I think this will be a library read for me. Thank you for the helpful review, Estelle!